Giorgia Meloni’s presence at Donald Trump’s inauguration aimed to reinforce her status as a privileged interlocutor with the new US administration. But this position carries risks for Italy and the EU.

He hails a fantastic woman sweeping all before her in Europe. She praises a strong and shrewd defender of the West. Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni are fast forging a new transatlantic "special relationship".

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose rise to power in Rome two years ago sparked panic among the European political establishment, may now be the continent’s best hope to have one of its own in the good graces of the Trump White House.

And while many extreme-right politicians in Europe have wavered in their support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Meloni has offered fulsome backing for Kyiv – even convincing her fellow rightwinger, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, to agree to a €50bn aid package to the war-torn country.